This set of small plastic creatures was hand-molded from a self-made color-changing plastic.
As the environmental temperature increases the frogs slowly adjust their color and become white. Great for fun in the bathtub, too!

Abstract

The aim of this paper to highlight the enabling powers of participative architectural design strategies and thus leaving space for uncertainty and surprise, with a particular focus on the work of Responsive Design Studio, a young emerging practice based in Zurich and Cologne. The playful synergies that can result from a constant dialogue between designer and user, object and function and the successful application of digital design and fabrication techniques as new, encouraging tools rather than dominating drivers are exemplified in a number of international projects that the studio has realized within the past few years.

Hans Sachs of responsive design talks, together with Sebastian Bächer of CNC Tischlerei Bächer GmbH, about the the potential merge of design and production with the upcoming and intensifying integration of digital tools in both processes.

The talk "design = production" takes place at the KISD on Tuesday April 1st 2014. Please see more details about this series of lectures on KISD news /calendar..

abstract

Similar to the 18th and 19th century industrial revolution, we are, today, in a process of societal change driven by the 'digital revolution', that, among other factors, significantly influences architecture and design. While information technology and digital, rule-based, robotic processes already dominate large parts of our private and business live, industrial processes still primarily govern the production of (consumer) goods.

But although industrial production still dominates the building and design industry, digital techniques have helped in reinstating basic principles of craft production in which material and form are naturally intertwined into a tradition of making. Hereby digital manufacturing processes are rather related to the principals of crafts than industrial production as they emphasize the qualities of the materials used and provide higher flexibility during the development and production process.

Thus the methodology of the object development process changes: the design development process reaches up to the last produced model in a product series. In the same time the production cycle starts with the first prototype object. In this lecture Sebastian Bächer and Hans Sachs present various personal and cooperative mostly experimental works and projects, which focus on the increasingly blurring boundaries between design, development and production.

responsive design studio

The strength of the team is rooted in design research and a commitment to exploring opportunities in creating responsive, adaptive and adapted physical space. We have a special interest in alternative solutions for vivid architectural geometries that interact with its user in the process of creation but also in its built shape, materialization, surface and visual behavior. A special focus lies on moving, dynamic structures but also on generative, parametric building and design.